The Trouble with Barney
by Salome Sensei
Summary: Thelma Lou stumbles onto Barney's terrible fetish. Will Mayberry ever be the same? A multi-chapter delight for adults only. COMPLETE.
1. Part I

Author's Note: Horrid perverse stuff that'll make your eyes bleed!! Nah, it's just naughty fun. Working hard to stay as in-character as possible while perving it up. Adults only, enjoy.

The Trouble with Barney, Part I

The rap on the front door was sharp and insistent. It startled her a bit, but Helen Krump was not the type to alarm easily. She put down the little meatloaf she was shaping and readying to place in the pan and made a small sound of dismay. She debated for a moment whether to wash her hands or just wipe them on one of the four matching flowered dishtowels at the top of the drawer that held only dishtowels. But if she opted for the latter, then her hands—covered with beef that had been freshly ground for her at the butcher's on her way home from school as well as egg, salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs (a taste she had learned as a child from war rationing)—would get grease on the pretty white porcelain knob of the drawer. She hadn't time to ponder further, however, as the knocking grew more urgent, and was joined by the voice of her friend Thelma Lou, calling her name.

"Helen? Helen, are you home?" whined Thelma Lou piteously as she knocked with whitened knuckles on her friend's door. She was practically shaking with anxiety. Though she was never as centered and serene as the well-spoken schoolteacher, Thelma Lou was no one to panic without cause. Her years as the steady girl of Barney Fife had taught her the value of calm in the face of crisis, and she treasured her role. Though she would likely never have the ease and maturity of a couple like Helen and the handsome, wavy-haired sheriff Andy Taylor, she had hooked his deputy and enjoyed being the one to soothe his nervous temperament and stand by his side when misunderstandings led him to need a sympathetic ear and two loving arms to hold him. Now, however, everything was threatening to unravel, to crumble to the floor like the crust of that piece of pecan pie Barney had dropped on her clean carpet only three blissful days ago.

At last Helen came to the door, pale blue dishtowel with white and yellow daisies still in her hands. She had hastily wiped off the drawer knob with it after pulling it to get the cloth, and now she used it on the front door handle, too. Thelma Lou burst into the room the moment Helen had it open, wringing her hands and pacing past her then back. "Why, Thelma Lou Harper, goodness gracious! What's the matter?"

"Oh, Helen, it's terrible." She perched on the arm of a chair then rose and paced back to Helen as she closed the door. She threw up her hands. "Just terrible," she emphasized.

Helen sighed and nodded. When Thelma Lou was like this there was no way to get useful information out of her. She'd have to calm her down. Fortunately, she had a fresh brewed pot of coffee on the stove. That always did wonders to quiet the nerves. She walked Thelma Lou to the sofa and sat her down. "Now you just sit here and try to pull yourself together. I'll bring you a hot cup of coffee, nice and sweet with lots of cream, just the way you like it. And then you can tell me just what's so terrible." Thelma Lou nodded nervously, her fingers to her mouth. Helen sighed and headed into the kitchen. The poor woman could be as bad as a fourth grader.

When she returned (having taken a cool-headed moment to pop the meatloaf into the oven and wash her hands before pouring the coffee), Thelma Lou didn't look a bit better. In fact, she was rather pale. "Are you all right?" she asked, putting the china cup and saucer carefully into her friend's shaking hands.

Thelma Lou shook her neatly coiffed head and looked about to cry. She sipped the coffee and let its warmth comfort her a bit. "Oh, Helen. You don't know," she bleated. "You just don't know."

"No," said Helen, in her no-nonsense teacherly voice. "No, I don't know, Thelma Lou, and if you don't tell me I'll never know." Really, the woman was a dear, but she could be positively maddening. "Get hold of yourself and tell me what's wrong!" She didn't like that she had raised her voice, of course. Calm control was her catchphrase for a contented life, but she wasn't perfect, "Perfection only comes when in heaven," her Mama used to say. But one could strive.

Thelma Lou took another drink and finally seemed to still herself. "Well, it's like this, Helen. I went over to the courthouse to bring Barney some cobbler. You know how he loves warm peach cobbler, straight from the oven, and I just picked the loveliest sweet ripe peaches from the tree behind my house. So, I thought I'd make him up a batch. With just a touch of cinnamon."

Helen nodded, swallowing down a sigh of impatience by sipping her coffee. "Go on," she urged, trying to keep her voice even.

"Well, I was carrying my cobbler, wrapped nice in towels so it'd stay warm, and I balanced it on my hip and got the Courthouse door open, and…and…" Thelma Lou flushed hotly and bit her lip.

Helen gripped her cup tightly, nodding but not speaking in hopes her troubled friend would get to the point more quickly if she didn't say anything more.

"It-it-it was Barney," she sputtered, "arms overhead, handcuffed to the outside of the cell on the left, naked as the day he was born!" She burst into tears, shaking from head to toe.

Helen's jaw dropped and she nearly broke the china cup in her hands in shock. Surely, she misheard. She squeezed her eyes shut against the image of a naked Barney attached to a jail cell, then opened them again, fixing them on Thelma Lou. She needed to hear more, but it was difficult to find her vocal cords. "Thelma—" She cleared her throat. "Are you sure?"

Thelma nodded vigorously, still beet red with embarrassment, her eyes wet. Oh, the image was burned forever into her mind. Sure? She was more than sure. Terribly, horribly sure. "I dropped the cobbler and the pan shattered and peaches and dough went everywhere!" she sobbed, unable to go on to the next part. Helen would be crushed.


	2. Part II

Author's Note: The WTF continues as Thelma Lou spills more beans, metaphorically.

The Trouble with Barney, Part II

Hearing your dear friend tell you she saw her beau naked and handcuffed to the outside of a jail cell in the Courthouse is not an everyday occurrence. In fact, it's the kind of thing one never expects to experience in a lifetime. Helen was no innocent babe—after all, she was a schoolteacher and children did say the darnedest things—but this? The first thing she did was put down her coffee cup. The next was to look Thelma Lou Harper straight in the eyes and confront her with the most likely explanation. "Did you use cooking sherry in that cobbler?"

Still flushed with embarrassment and anxiety, Thelma Lou furrowed her brow and shook her head in confusion. "What does that—" And then she understood. "Why, Helen! Are you accusing me of being drunk?" The redness of her blush turned petulant outrage in a feminine flash and she banged her cup and saucer down on the coffee table. "You know I never drink!"

Well, she was accusing her of exactly that, in fact, but it wouldn't help any to rile Thelma Lou up further, and it was true she wasn't the sort to nip from the bottle. But it was the only explanation Helen could come up with for the bizarre accusation. She tried again. "Are you sure he was…?" She couldn't possibly finish the sentence.

"As a jaybird, I tell you!"

A thought sprung into Helen's mind that instantly lowered her blood pressure and brought a little, knowing smile to her face. "But Thelma Lou, of course! There must've been some criminal they'd rounded up who'd stolen the key to the cell from Barney, cuffed him and taken his deputy's uniform to escape in." Silently, she thanked heaven for a cool head and a logical explanation.

Thelma Lou, however, was shaking her head vigorously as her hands twisted in her lap. "Oh, Helen, if only that were it." She'd have to tell her the rest of the story, and there was no avoiding it. This concerned Helen as much as her. She had a right to know and it was her job to tell it. "Andy was there, too," she fumbled.

Helen swallowed. "Cuffed to the other cell?" She couldn't deny the image was troubling, but in perhaps a different way than thoughts of Barney. Her mind flitted back to the roof-raising at the church after that terrible storm last April. Andy had been working hard in the hot sunshine and finally had taken off his shirt and wiped his brow with it. She remembered looking up at him from below, hammering in nails with those strong bare arms, chest glistening.

Thelma Lou interrupted her little reverie. "No, Helen, only Barney was…like that. Andy…Andy was…" She dropped her head into her hands. Wasn't it bad enough she had to see it? But now, to sit here and try to describe the terrible thing she'd seen. Surely the good Lord was testing her to the limit this day.

Helen couldn't imagine what was coming next. She truly couldn't. Her eyes were wide as saucers. "Andy was what?"

Thelma Lou took a deep breath, eyes squeezed shut, and blurted out, "He was slapping Barney's private parts with a motorcycle glove!" That took all she had, and she fell onto the sofa, reducing to a sobbing mess. Saying it was just as bad as seeing it!

The room spun. Though she wanted to believe it was all just a figment of Thelma Lou's overactive imagination, the truth was that Thelma Lou didn't really have much of an imagination. She was just as average a small-town woman as anyone could imagine. One of Mayberry's finest. And there was no denying that she could not have made up such a story to save her life. But if she wasn't imagining and she wasn't drunk and there was no feasible interpretation involving desperate criminals, then life as Helen Crump knew it was officially at an end. Even some crazy scheme involving a Hollywood director or the FBI couldn't explain this. No, there was no denying it. Something was going on that needed explanation, and Helen resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't rest until she got one. "Come on, Thelma Lou, we're going to the Courthouse."


	3. Part III

Author's Note: The WTF thickens...

The Trouble with Barney, Part III

The walk to the Courthouse was long and silent. Helen didn't trust herself behind the wheel of a car at the moment. She might run over a cat out of plain meanness, given her mood. Or hit a fire hydrant, and it wouldn't do to validate the way Andy and Barney teased about "female drivers." Andy and Barney. As if they ever had the right to tease anyone about anything again! But no. It just couldn't be true that Andy and Barney were doing some crazy thing in the Courthouse in the middle of the afternoon, right in broad daylight—or anytime at all! There was going to be an explanation, and she was going to listen to it. And believe it. Because if there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that Andy would not, could not lie straight to her face.

Thelma Lou had to hurry to keep up with her friend, their shoes clacking on the sidewalk, not very comfortable for walking the four blocks to the Courthouse. But when Helen told her they were going, there was nothing for it but to go. They hadn't even paused to put the coffee cups in the sink, though Helen had turned down the oven on her dinner. Even if the world was going to hell in a handbasket, that was no reason to ruin a perfectly good meatloaf, she told Thelma Lou as she slammed the door behind them. And it was quite a slam, too.

As they neared, Helen's mind was at work deciding the best course of action upon arrival. Should she just burst into the door in an "Aha!" sort of way, confronting them with whatever she saw immediately? Or should she collect herself as best she could, showing the calm, mature demeanor she was known for? The latter might be best, especially considering that whatever the boys had been doing, they were surely dressed and tidied up now, and who knew if maybe someone else was stopping by to pay a parking ticket or the like. Yes, a cool head and a calm hand were called for, and Helen Crump could always muster them.

When they reached the door, Thelma Lou reached out to clutch Helen's arm. "Oh Helen, maybe we'd better just go home," she whimpered. She fought back tears. Couldn't they just pretend it hadn't happened at all?

"Now, Thelma Lou, you just get ahold of yourself. Everything is going to be fine and this is no time to lose your nerve." The speech was as much to rouse herself as her friend's courage, and she turned the knob and pushed open the door before she had the chance to think any more about anything. "Andy?" she called, forcing her voice not to falter.

Sheriff Andy Taylor was sitting at his desk, characteristic smile on his handsome face, pushing a drawer closed in his desk. He licked and affixed a stamp onto an official-looking envelope, then rose to greet his sweetheart. "Why Helen, what brings you down to the courthouse so near the dinner hour? Barney and I were just about to head on home, weren't we, Barn?" he said, turning to his deputy. When Barney nodded vigorously, he turned back. "Oh, Thelma Lou, I didn't see you there," he added, noticing her peeking out from behind Helen.

Helen took in the large, open room in a glance. She was excellent at sniffing out lies as well as assessing her surroundings. It was just one more of her teacherly skills. Nothing was amiss, everything was in its place, from the cells to the file cabinets to Andy and Barney themselves. Well, Barney was never quite "in place," so to speak, being of such a nervous disposition, but there surely was no evidence of debauchery as Thelma Lou had described. Still, there were questions to be answered, for even if her friend had imagined the strange scenario of a naked Barney being smacked with a motorcycle glove, she surely hadn't imagine baking a cobbler.

Almost as if he could read her mind, the sheriff rose and addressed Thelma Lou again. "Now, I don't know what made you run off so quick and frightened-like, Thelma Lou, but we cleaned up the mess and were right sorry to miss the chance to taste some of that delicious cobbler of yours. Weren't we sorry, Barn?"

"Oh yeah, Anj, right sorry," replied Barney instantly, nodding enthusiastically again.

"The glassware broke, of course, so we just tossed it out. Unfortunate all around," he said, sympathetically.

Thelma Lou nodded slowly, brow furrowed in utter confusion. Helen could tell she was wondering whether she had lost her mind entirely.

"Did you see a mouse or somethin'?" Barney put forth, voice shaky.

Thelma Lou sputtered incoherently in reply.

Not a mouse, thought Helen; she smelled a rat.

Andy replied, quick on the heels of Barney's question and before Thelma Lou could find words. "Oh surely, we do get mice, even though we put out traps," he said in a rush. "Them mice can be awful frightening when they skitter under your feet the way they do, _awful_ frightening. Can't they, Barn?"

"Terrible frightening," Barney echoed.

"A mouse?" Thelma Lou squeaked. She had never seen a single mouse in the Courthouse ever. None of this made a lick of sense.

"Oh yeah," Andy continued, walking over to Thelma Lou. "That must've been what it was. A mouse. It just skittered right on by you." He supported his hasty narrative with little wiggles of his fingers to mimic the skittering and Thelma Lou flinched. "And then you dropped the cobbler and hit your head right on the door, then opened it and went running out."

Thelma Lou bit her lip and put a hand up to the side of her head. Now he came to mention it, she did have the most dreadful headache. Perhaps that _was_ what happened…she just imagined the rest. "Yes," she muttered. She began to blush hotly, wondering what in the world could make that terrible sight she thought she had seen come to mind. But she was also relieved that it was only her imagination.

Helen watched the scene unfold in silence. She had come to the Courthouse for an explanation, and Andy was giving one, and a plausible one. But it was a lie. She knew it in her bones. Andy Taylor was lying right to their faces. And if her bones hadn't known it, her eyes would. The little trail of sweat down Barney's face and the fact that his uniform was misbuttoned was all the evidence Sherlock Holmes himself could ask for.

"It's too bad about the baking pan, Thelma Lou," Helen said gently, putting her arm around her dazed friend. "But we'd better be getting back home. It's almost dinner time." She turned to go, then whirled back, catching Andy wiping his brow. "Why Andy, I'd almost forgotten why I'd come by. I'm trying a new seasoning in my meatloaf, and I'd just love to have you come to dinner." She smiled warmly. "I'll stop by and tell Aunt Bee on my way home. I'm sure she won't mind, since it's for a new recipe and all." And she hurried Thelma Lou out and closed the door behind them before Andy could speak.

Perhaps it was best for Thelma Lou not to know the truth about whatever strangeness was going on, she thought protectively. But the same could not be said for Helen Crump!


	4. Part IV

The Trouble with Barney, Part IV

Keeping busy enabled Helen Crump to remain calm and collected under even severe strain, such as waiting for Andy to come for dinner and explain precisely how he could lie to her face and expect them to still remain on the path to a future together. She did not tolerate lying in her students, and she certainly wasn't going to tolerate it in a grown man, especially one who might someday propose marriage to her and expect "yes" for an answer.

She turned the handle to open the tin of tomato sauce and the other of peas. The meatloaf was half-baked now, and the recipe recommended pouring the tomato sauce and peas over it at this stage. She smiled to herself as she opened the oven door to remove the fragrant ground beef. She did love a nice meatloaf, and so did Andy. So many things they shared. Surely this would be just another little bump in an otherwise smooth and long road?

Once the loaf was back in the oven at 350 degrees for another 30 minutes, Helen decided to organize her little desk in her room. There was little to tidy, as she was a good homemaker and kept her written correspondence as tidy as her schoolwork. She doubted she could concentrate enough to actually write a letter or prepare checks, but she could open the few bills and take out the contents and dispose of the envelopes, couldn't she? And as her hands worked, her mind drifted. Images rose before her: the broad smile on Andy's face, Barney's sweat, Thelma Lou's confusion, Aunt Bee's surprise when she appeared at her door to apologize for the short notice in asking that Andy sup with her—if it wasn't too terribly inconvenient. As the faces swirled before her, she crumpled an envelope, perhaps unnecessarily tightly, and threw it into the little oval waste basket beside the desk. How she wish this whole mess had never come up!

Andy's knock at the door brought Helen from her reverie, and she welcomed him inside with a cool politeness she did not feel. "Dinner will be ready in just a few more minutes," she said, thinking of the tasty "Meatloaf Surprise," as the recipe called it, and the green salad chilling in the refrigerator. But she was thinking of serving it, not eating it. Her appetite had retreated in the face of the imminent conflict. "How about a glass of lemonade?"

"That'd be fine, thank you," Andy said warmly. He could feel Helen's tension, and he regretted it sincerely. Whether they had this out before dinner or after, indigestion was going to be unavoidable he knew, and he did a lot in life to avoid indigestion. If Helen only knew…and soon, most likely, she would. He sat himself down in the living room on the sofa he knew well, in a room smelling just a touch of the hairspray she used each morning. A familiar, comfortable smell. Hairspray and furniture polish and Helen. If the future did bring them together in wedlock, he knew he would have no problems getting even more used to that unique aroma.

"Here you are," Helen said with a little prim smile, holding out the tall glass. She sat not beside Andy on the sofa but in the chair opposite, across the coffee table. There'd be no avoiding the issue with a hug and a kiss.

"Mmm," Andy opined. "That's good lemonade. I do believe you make the tastiest lemonade in Mayberry. But don't you tell Aunt Bee I said so." He smiled and drank again. Passing a little friendly chat back and forth helped him assess where things lay between them. He already knew Helen was tense and wondering—she did have a mind made for wondering and thinking—but how tense?

Helen didn't respond. She was as silent as the grave, ignoring Andy's compliment for the avoidance tactic she knew it to be. She sat her lemonade down on the side table untasted and folded her hands in her lap. She let her posture speak more than words could.

Andy sighed, put down his half-empty glass, and ran his hand through his hair. "All right then, Helen, I'll tell you everything. It's not fitting for a woman's ears, and it'll mortify Barn if he ever figures out that you know, but I reckon as I owe you the truth."

Helen nodded slowly, moved by the declaration and a bit worried at what she was about to hear. She forced calm into her voice as she replied, "I think that's best."

It was clear Helen was riled up when her voice got all low and teacherly like that. Andy didn't like it a bit, but he knew he was responsible for it. And just as he'd helped Barney with his…problem, well, now it was time to be a man and own up to the way he'd lied in the courthouse about it. Not that there was a better way to have handled it, in his opinion. Helen might—just might—be able to understand. But not Thelma Lou. And Barney and Thelma Lou had been his main concern at the courthouse. It wouldn't do to destroy his best friend's happiness like that. He cleared his throat audibly.

Helen tapped her left thumb onto her folded right hand nervously. She honestly had to bite her lip to stop herself from telling Andy not to tell her whatever it was. She needed to know, and that was that.

"It's like this, Helen," began Andy, then cleared his throat again. His eyes dropped from hers. This was not something Helen was going to understand. No woman would. Heck, he could barely say he understood, even as he was doing it. He remembered Barney's face when he'd confessed his "unnatural need," drained of color. How he'd pleaded for Andy's help. And Andy Taylor was not a man to let down a friend, especially not Barney. Never was there a man more often in need of the kind of help that Andy could provide. Andy felt proud to help, and Barney lived a happier life because of him. There was no denying that. He looked up again at Helen watching him. "You see," Andy began again, voice lower and softer now. "Barney has a problem, Helen. A kind of problem you've probably never heard of."

Helen heard the gravity in Andy's tone, the sincerity of it. This wasn't someone making an excuse for some bizarre, embarrassing moment. Just the same, though, she felt peculiar whenever someone tried to explain something she'd "probably never heard of." And she must have shown her suspicion because Andy held a hand up and hurried on.

"Now, I know you've studied a lot more than I have. You're an educated woman, Helen, and I admire you for it. I know you know some about psychology, which is what we're talking about here with Barney. Psychology." He sighed and took another sip of lemonade, with just the briefest moment of wishing it had some moonshine in it. "It's a long story, Helen. Dates back to when we were growing up together, maybe earlier. We went to see a doctor in Mount Pilot about three years ago, before Barney started courting Thelma Lou. When he was making up that stuff about dating Juanita. And the doctor saw Barn and told him he needed to see a specialist, a psychiatrist. Because even though he'd come about the cuts on his thigh…"

It was Helen's turn to hold up her hand. She shook her head. "I don't understand any of this, Andy. What you're saying doesn't make any sense."

Andy nodded. "That's what I thought," he continued, mistaking Helen's comment to mean she couldn't understand Barney's problem not his disjointed narrative. "Why would a man who'd accidentally cut his thigh a couple of times with an old pocket knife and come to see the doc about whether it would heal by itself need a psychiatrist?"

Now she was even more confused. Her mouth dropped open, but she couldn't think of anything to say, so she simply shrugged.

"Well, once it was explained to me, it made sense. But as we left the doctor's office I didn't have the littlest idea of what he was getting at. Barn was fiddling with the little card that listed the psychiatrist's name and phone number. He joked in that nervous way he had, 'At least the old leg's okay,' smacking it as we walked to the car, then asked me to stop at the diner down the road where he'd use the pay telephone to make an appointment. I was as amazed as you are right now that he wanted to see this psychiatrist and I told him so. I'll never forget his response. All serious like, he grabbed my shoulder and said, 'I can't live like this anymore, Anj.' And I knew right then that he'd been cutting that leg himself, on purpose. And maybe doing other things, too, like when he'd come into the office with one of those white silk scarves old time pilots wore and said he was trying out a new look. I saw the bruises around his neck, but I never connected it all."

"Connected it all," Helen echoed, part question, part confirmation. A picture began to form in her mind, but she waited for Andy to say more.

"Well, anyway, Barn saw that psychiatrist fella, and his diagnosis was that my deputy is what he called a 'masochist.'" He pronounced the word in syllables, like he was saying it for the first time. "Seems he hurts himself...and in a strange sort of way it makes him feel better." It made him feel strange in his gut to say it, so he rushed on to defend his friend, as he always felt drawn to do. "Like when Otis drinks so those fights he and Mrs. Campbell are always having don't hurt him so much, or when Floyd enters those 'Best Barber' competitions. You know, how he loses every time and it seems like he knows he's gonna lose and he does it anyway and gets all kinds of sympathy from everyone in town? Everyone tells him what a great barber he is after he loses but not so often otherwise? Or when Aunt Bee—"

Helen interrupted. The room was beginning to swim. "Are you telling me everyone in Mayberry is a…masochist, Andy?" Though she was hesitant to admit it to herself, she did sometimes call her mother on a Sunday evening, knowing full well she'd lecture her about not being married yet and there was a kind of pleasure in it. She'd defend herself by saying she had a good job and a steady beau, and her mother would go on, saying those children she taught weren't the same as her own and a job didn't keep you warm at night. She blushed at the thought that maybe she wasn't making those calls just to be a good daughter, but that she actually looked forward to the lectures as some kind of…penance for the independent life she'd chosen.

"Well, Helen," Andy said firmly, "maybe I am, just a bit." He ran a hand through his hair again in his characteristic way. "I can't help but wonder, now and then, whether keeping Barney on as my deputy isn't a sort of a kind of masochism, too." He was as sincere as he could be, and it pained him to admit it.

Suddenly, Helen remembered the image Thelma Lou had described to her: Barney, handcuffs, Andy, a motorcycle glove. "But Andy," she burst out, voice high and strained to banish the image. "Aren't you supposed to get people to stop being masochists?" Even as she was surprised at how easy the word was coming into her mouth, images of straight jackets and shock therapy she'd seen in a movie once came to mind.

"Say," said Andy, "I think I smell something burning in the kitchen."


	5. Part V: The Conclusion

Author's Note: All good things must come to an end. Hope you've enjoyed the ride.

The Trouble with Barney, Part V

The meatloaf was tasty, and Andy was only too happy to turn the conversation to Helen's wonderful cooking and the lovely table she set for them. In the glow of the last of the red sunset outside her window and the pretty hanging light fixture over her dining table, he saw her beauty, inside and out. A calm, mature woman who shared his values and care for others. But could she understand his relationship with Barney? He dared not bring up the subject again, though her quiet and downturned face let him know sooner or later they'd have to finish the conversation interrupted by dinner's readiness.

"Let me get the coffee," Andy said, knowing where she kept the china and the sugar and creamer well enough. Helen nodded, appreciative of a man who helped with such things as dishes and coffeemaking, and followed Andy into the kitchen with the empty plates and leftovers from the meal. She hadn't prepared a dessert, but neither of them had a big sweet tooth. The coffee would do nicely, and in any case they still had matters to discuss between them.

As Andy set the filled percolator on the stove, he cleared his throat. Helen put the dishes in the sink after scraping any remaining food into the trash, and was grateful to have something to do with her hands as Andy readied himself to speak further on the topic of Barney's condition and Andy's role in helping him with it.

"You asked me whether we should get people to stop being masochists, and that deserves an answer, especially in regard to what poor Thelma Lou saw today but also because you're my girl, Helen, and I want things to stay that way."

Helen nodded and gave a small smile as she transferred the remaining salad greens into a glass bowl with fitted lid for storing in the refrigerator. Despite the strange, even bizarre secrets she was learning about, she wanted to stay Andy's "girl" as much as he wanted her to.

Andy walked to the kitchen window and peered outside. It was easier to tell it without facing Helen's honest, earnest eyes. "What I can tell you most is that Barney Fife is a good man, and he's a darn sight better now than before we began our…what you might call 'sessions.' It seems masochism isn't something that can be cured, not like a cold or making a disobedient child behave. And Barn just didn't want to go through with those 'shock treatments.' I mean, it just can't be good for a body to be lit up like a Christmas tree, now can it? So, well, Barney and I, we came up with our own plan. We'd do what the psychiatrist suggested, we'd figure out some of his fears and what you call 'anxieties' and we'd talk them out. But talking didn't stop old Barn from taking out that pocket knife, and I could only get him to promise not to hurt himself by agreeing to do more than talk." Andy swallowed hard and went on, parting the pretty lace curtains over the window as the stars began to appear. "I vowed I'd do whatever Barn asked if it didn't involve truly hurting him, and…," he spun around to face Helen from across the little room, "…the truth is I enjoy it." The words came fast and low now: "I mean it means a lot to me to be there for Barn, to see him getting better, making progress, not needing quite the…strictness he did at first."

Helen tried to nod, to allow Andy to get it all out, but she found herself frozen in place, half-wrapped half a meatloaf in her hands. Images flooded her mind. She didn't know where they came from, but they came, and they made her shudder.

Andy came back to her side and put his hand on her arm. She set the meatloaf down on the counter as she looked into the affection and need in his eyes. "Helen, please tell me you understand?"

Helen put her hand over Andy's. Just as Barney needed Andy, Andy needed her. And she would not disappoint. "I understand Andy Taylor, that you are a dear, dear friend. You are doing all you can for Barney in the best way you know how. And I agree entirely that Thelma Lou doesn't need to know about this." She took his hand in hers and led them out to the living room, speaking as they walked. "I hope someday soon Barney will be cured enough to handle matters on his own a little more. And I can't help but wonder whether a girl who would scold him more often might not be good for him. Maybe I can encourage Thelma Lou to be a bit more demanding of him." She pondered the possibilities as they reached the sofa. She encouraged Andy to sit and then curled up in his arms. "But between then and now, Andy, what I'd most like is a single promise."

Andy held Helen close, knowing he was the luckiest man in the world. "Anything, Helen," he said softly.

"If you must do it in the Courthouse, for goodness' sake, do it in the back room after hours!"

Andy smiled and kissed Helen firmly. In his mind, he could almost hear music, kind of like the way that television program _I Love Lucy_ ended every week. It seemed so silly, but Aunt Bee loved it. And there was something reassuring in the way there was always love at the end of every episode. If only real life were so tidy.

/lj-cut


End file.
